Jane hopes his on-pitch performance makes up for off-pitch mistake

Marc Hinton

AUCKLAND: Under-fire All Black Cory Jane has admitted he did a ''stupid thing'' when he went out drinking on Thursday night and said he is prepared to accept whatever punishment may be coming his way.

All Blacks coach Graham Henry said after last night's 33-10 World Cup quarter-final victory over Argentina that Jane's Thursday night drinking session with teammate Israel Dagg had been ''dealt with'' and the team had now moved on.

But Jane, one of the standouts in a grinding All Black performance that put them into a semi-final encounter with arch-rivals Australia on Sunday, faced the media after the match and admitted a major mistake in judgment.

''I knew I had to put in a good performance after making a poor decision the other night,'' Jane said following a Sunday newspaper report of he and Dagg's drinking escapade.

''When you do something stupid and it comes out in the media on game day it can affect the team. I'm just happy that the boys played well and we managed to get the win.''

Jane said he hadn't had a chance to apologise to his teammates, but was about to do so.

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''I didn't want to ruin the day. I'll go in there and have a talk to them. I sure will apologise,'' he said.

Jane said he had tried to stay out of Henry's way during an ''awkward day''. ''I was trying to hide,'' he admitted. ''I just knew I had to play well. I might get in trouble for discipline. I should.''

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The 28-year-old said his widely reported indiscretions had made it a tough match to prepare for.

''But we're in knockout rugby so there's a lot of pressure anyway.''

Jane said he didn't know if the matter was closed or not. ''Whatever happens after this will happen. It was just a stupid choice. I don't want to go into too much detail about it but it was just a poor choice by me and I put a lot of pressure on my teammates,'' he said.

A terse Henry felt Jane went some way to righting his off-field wrongs with his on-field performance.

He said the All Blacks had ''dealt with that and we've moved on''.

''He's a proud All Black and he wanted to perform. He probably didn't make a good decision during the week and he wanted to right that. I thought he was one of the outstanding players,'' Henry said.

All Blacks captain Richie McCaw made it clear that standards had to be maintained if the goal of winning the World Cup on home soil was to be achieved. ''If we are realistic about putting everything into winning this thing, it's about making good decisions and we've probably had an incident that's probably not a good decision. The guys are pretty committed about doing everything they can to win the thing,'' he said.

Dagg wasn't involved in last night's match due to injury.

Revelations of regular late-night drinking sessions involving young players are causing huge embarrassment to both the All Blacks and the New Zealand Rugby Union.

Both would not speak about reported incidents ahead of last night's quarter-final.

There were emerging reports yesterday regarding late night drinking in Wellington when the national squad was based there for the final pool match against Canada.

Winger Zac Guildford and Dagg were reportedly seen drinking at Wellington bar The Establishment on the Sunday night after the All Blacks' win over Canada.

Guildford had previously been reprimanded for a late-night drinking incident in Brisbane just days after being named in the All Blacks World Cup squad while Dagg was criticised by fans on talkback radio last night for drinking while recovering from injury.